She has only a few memories of that time in Sardinia, and even the half-dozen, utterly faded, stiff-edged Polaroid snaps that remain seem to bear no relation to the two of them or what they hoped to find there: he sitting on a large rock with his hands stretched skyward; she in the doorway of a hotel; he stepping gracefully through the arch of an ancient chapel; she climbing into a little hump-backed rental car; he standing in the morning surf and wearing a pair of exotically printed swimming trunks; and another of him crouched on a hillside examining a small plant.

An odd thing happened. During the weeks in Sardinia they stayed in three different hotels, and in each of these places they were given the same room number, number five. Kay was the one who pointed this out to Philip, who might otherwise not have noticed. As a coincidence it seemed to her mildly amusing and, perhaps, even an omen of good luck, not that her instincts leaned toward omens. Philip, on the other hand, found it thrilling and also alarming. He brooded about the numbers and even quizzed the desk clerk in the third hotel about the way in which rooms were allotted. Though their time was running out, he insisted on registering in a fourth hotel in order to test the pattern, then changed his mind at the last minute. One night he worked out the probability figures on the back of a menu, allowing each hotel fifteen rooms. The numbers were overwhelmingly against such a coincidence. He rechecked the figures. “Look at this,” he demanded. Kay could see that he felt threatened and at the same time exhilarated. He discussed it with anyone who would listen including, one evening, a British couple they met in the hotel dining room. His voice grew implausibly overpitched, and the English pair exchanged sharp looks of apprehension-or so Kay thought. The next morning he woke up saying, “I’m making too much of this. I’m letting it get to me.”